During my undergraduate years one of my friends told me the distortions that nostalgia creates in ones mind. I was too immature to understand it then. I am beginning to understand it now.
As a kid, I used to live in Dalli-Rajhara. I am sure that even people in Bhilai-Durg would be hard pressed to locate it on the map. The high points in our lives were the visits to Bhilai. One could travel by road or by train. Since we always traveled by train, I had a marked fascination to travel by road. Another reason to prefer the road journey was a fantastic small eatery which sold amongst other items - "Gulab Jamuns". Now, nostalgia has created a memory of taste and smell which not even the best Gulab Jamuns from Kolkatta or Delhi have been able to displace. Sometime back, Amma and I decided to go on a long drive and went all the way to Gunderdahi after a singularly bad lunch at Brindavan. Gunderdahi is one of those 10 shops, a railway station and a bus stand kind of small town in interior India. A quick scan of the 10 shops enabled us to locate the dhaba of my childhood memories.
Alas! the Seth who used to run the show had gone into retirement and allowed the standards of the dhaba to fall. The Gulab Jamuns did not match the taste that Nostalgia had registered in my brain. It made me regret my journey to Gunderdahi and shatter the memory of "The Taste". I guess I will now not go to Pulla Reddy in Hyderabad and shatter a few more of my "Tastes".
Randomly landed on your blog on a lazy Sunday evening and ended up reading all the posts. Just wanted to say that it was time well spent.
ReplyDeleteI faced many of the issues that you talked about....living in Hyderabad, being unhappy at Cognizant, facing pressure over my decision to stay back in India and so on. You have a way with words and you brought back some memories, not all of them good, but am glad nevertheless.